I don’t have a welcome mat at my door because I’m not a liar. – Unknown

Welcome to “Thursday Numbers!” In case you’re a first-time visitor, this is the weekly column where I take a look at the numbers that are in the news (in descending order) and provide commentary sometimes sprinkled with sarcasm, humor, and bluntness.

This week’s topics include the Mega Millions jackpot, unemployment, newspaper jobs, home run record, Trump’s judicial nominees, Daines’ travels, USA Men’s basketball, mass shooting worries, 9/11, harvest moon, the Democrats debate, and much more!

172,000,000

That’s the jackpot for Friday’s Mega Million lottery. (MegaMillions.com)

217,000

In the week ending August 31, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 217,000, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised level. (USDOL)

Thursday’s data is released at 6:30 a.m. Mountain time, well after this column is published. Click HERE to see today’s unemployment data.

33,000

The ongoing shrinking of the old media industry and business model has resulted in the elimination of 33,000 newspaper jobs from 2008-2018. (Pew Research)

6,105

Wednesday night Major League Baseball broke the single-season home run record of 6,105 home runs. That record was set in 2017. There are still over two weeks left in the season. (CBS Sports)

150

The U.S. Senate confirmed President Trump’s 150th judicial nominee Wednesday, helping to fulfill the president’s campaign promise to remake the federal bench with a conservative bent. (Washington Times)

Control of the White House and U.S. Senate is very important.

80

In his newsletter, U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) says he had a busy August meeting with Montanans around Big Sky Country. Daines writes that he visited 31 cities and 21 counties, held over 80 meetings with Montanans and logged nearly 7,000 miles around the Treasure State.

That’s wonderful, but Daines did not have any “in-person” town hall meetings.

58

Until they lost to France Wednesday, the USA Men’s basketball team had won 58 consecutive tournament games in FIBA and Olympic competition with NBA players, starting with the bronze-medal game at the 2006 world championships and continuing through every FIBA Americas, World Cup, and Olympics event since. (ESPN)

The best players in the USA did not want to play in the FIBA tournament, which is too bad. Other countries are catching up to us in basketball.

48

That’s the percentage of Americans who are worried about being the victim of a mass shooting. (Gallup)

I tell family and friends when they are attending events to look for exits and places to hide in the event of a mass shooting. It’s too bad we have to even think about it.

18

Yesterday marked 18 years since 9/11. I can’t believe it has been that long. We must never forget!

In case you are interested, there’s a petition to make 9/11 a Federal holiday. (Change.org)

13

A harvest moon—or the full moon that happens nearest to the fall equinox—is due to appear in the sky on the night of Friday the 13th. (Smithsonian.com)

Head to your bunkers…

3

The 10 highest-polling Democratic primary candidates are heading to Texas Southern University in Houston for the third Democratic presidential debate on Thursday (tonight). The debate will air on ABC and Telemundo; it begins at 6:00 pm Mountain time. (CBS News)

The candidates participating are Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, California Senator Kamala Harris, Businessman Andrew Yang, Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, and Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro.

There’s also NFL Thursday Night Football (Buccaneers vs. Panthers on the NFL Network) – so you know where I will be!

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